Quotes from Suzanne Berne

In my experience, people's sorrows are always in danger of bursting out; it's only through careful inattention that they can be contained.

Millions of microscopic fragments of Julia now lay, invisibly, on the speckled beige linoleum tiles of the classroom floor. What was left in her chair was a phantom of Julia, which she learned to project at these moments, by sheer force of will, until she could resemble herself, a process that would take days, even weeks, and was never entirely successful.

He's a real romantic," said my mother. "Romantics are usually bastards, in case you haven't noticed.

He was a true voluptuary, in his own modest way, with a voluptuary's genius for softening the world around him.

He was a mostly mild man with a weakness for passion, a suburban father burdened with the heart of a Russian hero without any sort of balancing grand intellect or ironic world view. The yearning itself, the recklessness, that's what lured him.

What else could a person do, she thought, staring hard at the darkness, but try to be happy? However confused and wrong-looking the attempt might be. And then whatever happens afterward all you could do was bear it, because whatever you could not bear you had to carry.

What else could a person do, she thought, staring hard at the darkness, but try to be happy? However confused and wrong-looking the attempt might be. And then whatever happened afterward all you could do was bear it, because whatever you could not bear you had to carry.

George watched this exchange with disappointment. "Performance parenting" was how Tina used to describe it. Seeking to charm listeners in public with one's patience and good humor, using one's child as a foil. Had George not been there, Emily would have told Nicholas to be quiet or no ice cream and that would have been the end of it.

She liked them all, she liked them so much, her guests, her family, and the bright muddle of their mingled conversations, she loved that, too, all the marvelous, ordinary, perishable noise.